Like a Cat Loves a Bird

';A deeply stylish, astute, and illuminating portrait of a fascinating writer.'Francesca Wade, author of Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife

A spiky and delicious new literary portrait of the great twentieth-century British author of beloved novels such as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Girls of Slender Means

';She was, if you believe what you read in the papers: a genius, a survivor, a bad mother, a fickle friend, a closeted lesbian, a tyrant, a loner, an eccentric, a recluse, a gossip, and an arch-manipulator. She would politely encourage you not to believe what you read in the papers.'from Like a Cat Loves a Bird

Muriel Spark (19182006) was one of literature's great shapeshifters. That mercurial quality is found in her strange, brilliant, cruel novelswith their plots featuring a cast of elderly characters receiving telephone calls from Death, the devil going clubbing in Peckham, and a fascist schoolmistress leading her coterie of girls astraybut it is also true of her as a person. As sly, nimble, and elegant as Spark's own work, Like a Cat Loves a Bird offers a thrilling new perspective on a remarkable life and career that spanned much of the twentieth century.

From Spark's childhood in Edinburgh to her final years in Tuscanyvia South Africa, London, New York, and RomeJames Bailey traces a light-footed journey around the world and through the novelist's strange and magnificent books. The result is an irresistible story of transformation, wit, and fierce determinationand a passionate case for this vital modern artist.